Nardis is a jazz composition written by Miles Davis in 1958 during his modal period. It was written for Cannonball Adderley and first recorded on the Riverside album Portrait of Cannonball, with Miles in the studio to guide the session. Although Miles never recorded Nardis himself, the piece became closely associated with Bill Evans, who played and recorded it many times with his trios. The tune is modal, drawing on the Phrygian dominant scale and the double harmonic scale, and it follows a thirty-two-bar AABA form, usually played in E minor by Evans. It has become a standard in jazz and a staple of Evans’s repertoire, appearing on numerous albums since the early 1960s. The authorship of Nardis is subject to debate, but it is widely credited to Miles Davis.
